battle of a trade bow build

[soy]

Hi all i did mot want to tie up the nows section rambling on about my trials on this one hope y'all enjoy/have helpful hints and criticism 
Some of this is a repeat from the trade section so please bear with me


We will start with the wood it is walnut that i had cut as a dead standing tree so no trees were harmed in the making of this bow it was rotted and bug riddled as i have stated i had to go down ring by ring to get to undamaged wood to the tune of 28-30 years worth
 

[soy]

The farther i went the more character it developed
 
 
 
 

[criveraville]

A snake skin would look good on that bow

That wood is purty!

Cipriano

[soy]

The first thing that came to my mind when i was thinking about a trade bow was a raw hide backed walnut with carp skins(inspired by Keenan's carp backed bow of the year) and as luck would have it about that time boath turtle Creek and legionnaire had said items up for trade...what timing ...so i get the raw hide soak it for a few hours its ready than i notice i cant find my ace bandages but have no fear i have plastic wrap ...i joint tbe edges aply tb3 to the bow than do the same to the rawhide slapem wrap em and come back in 45 min to take the wrap off and no good!everything is wet and glue coverd with nothing sticking so i take it all apart (with a few kind words)wash it up and wait a day ...after getting some ace bandages, and some coaching from gun doc i find i did a few things wrong 1the temp needs to be above 50°f 2 dab the access water off and 3have some patients .......so after round 2 i claim victory

[soy]

I got the edges trimmed and let it dry. I than filed and sanded the edges about 1/8"in around the whole thing so it had smooth transition lines for the skins
 
 


Have no fear those are not air bubbles just rough spots on the surface 

[soy]

Now that my first raw hide backing job is done i cut nocks in and in doing so broke the sholder of one side on the bottom and did such a good job of it i had to shorten the that limb witch is fine as it is the bottom. I decided to install the tip overlay early to prevent this from happening again using a method i had seen on one of gordon's build along 's....i used jamacian ironwood as the colors fit rite onto my intended color palate and os harder than a hundred dollars worth of jaw breakers, and than on to tillering 
 
 

[soy]

For whatever reason the pics. Of the tillering process save all but disappeared but let me assure you that this was a challenge for me as the top limb is farther forward comes im at am angle and is twisted so full draw looks somewhat strange  but at this point i am close to my desired weight and they are at the same distance so i will leave well enough alone
 

[bubby]

you did a great job on a tuff stave soy, Bub

[soy]

Next its on to the carp...here are the steps i took 1 sand down raw hide with 60 grit to ruff it up 2 wipe it down with accitone to remove anything that prohibit good adhering 3 repeat process on the carp skins 4apply tb3 to both surfaces 5place skins and rub air and access glue out and continue to do so until the glue sets as opposed to wraping save one part i wrapped with string around an irregular spot.
 
 
 
 

[soy]

Now up to this point i thought things went quite well, and than BAM things went south for reasons i was not shure and after consulting expert advise from a panel of bowyers whom shal remain nameless for the time being, i have narrowd down to a couple missed or wrong steps1 i shuld have soaked the skins in water prier to applying 2the use of accitone is not recommended and 3the string may have been to tight. But what the result was is the skin (melted)and separated from the middle out witch than forced me to remove the center skin.
 
 

It was really to bad for two reasons one it looked really cool imho and two the only other skin i had was to small to fill in the one i removed
 

[soy]

But as luck should have it not two days prior a friend of mine picked me up a few tanned wdb skins so i removed the other center skin cut the snake in half put the middle tward the outsides so the diamond pattern got larger as it moves away from the handle making it merge to the carp
.....blessing in disguise ...as it brings another somthing to the party i did npt water soak the snake and used the same "petting " technique as pd calls it to remove air and access tb3.

 
 
 

I used black linnen thread to cover the joints as one was slightly higher than the other

[soy]

Looks kinda cool not what i had planned but all things happen for a reason...keep in mind first time with carp, snake, and rawhide ...
 

I had made quite a mess with the glue on me and the bow after scraping and sanding to fix my mess i ended up loosing 5#of draw weight 
Now that the backing is on time to adress the next project on tbe list
 

[soy]

Well the answer to that is mop  mother of pearl, it was not as hard to work with as i first suspected nippers,  coaping saw, file, and sand paper.first i drilled out the center of the knot you so it was round, measured it for a rough oppening, and shaped to fit and than i glued it in with epoxy. Turned out to be the first inlay job that i was happy with
 
 
 
 

[soy]

And than wala 
 
 


Kinda looks like a moonlight night 

[randman]

That sure is a beauty Soy. Some guys going to be proud to own that one! Specially knowin what went into it. You got my address don't ya?

Kinda looks like a moonlight night

Sounds like a good name for it.